


take you for all you got

by seashellcolors



Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: Drabble, Episode Related, F/F, Implied Sexual Content, Infidelity, Spoilers for 5x03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-05
Updated: 2019-09-05
Packaged: 2020-10-10 19:41:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20533514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seashellcolors/pseuds/seashellcolors
Summary: Linda says, I went to a solicitor.





	take you for all you got

_I went to a solicitor._

Linda says_, I went to a solicitor_. It should be more than expected. Shelby men, _Shelbies_, all of them, they’re not soft. They’re not spouse material. They won’t spend their day playing with their kids, teaching them how to play hide and seek, throw pebbles in the lake with them. They will teach them what the sound of a gun fired sounds like. They will teach them yells and screams.

Linda says, _I went to a solicitor_. It’s not expected, from her. She implies it’s a lost cause.

Lizzie says—well. Lizzie more or less tells her, _I went to one, too_.

She went, because she was tired of this life. Tired, tired, tired. Every day.

She dropped the phone, because the exhaustion isn’t bone deep. It’s in her flesh, mostly. It’s in her heart, too, probably, but that felt rotten a long time ago. It is not, however, in her mind.

This is _her_ life. She entered it, she walked the walk, she talked the talk. It’s her life, and it’s time Tommy, and everyone else, acknowledges that.

* * *

If you marry a Shelby, you’re supposed to only be with a Shelby. That’s pretty clear. What nobody’s made clear, though, is which Shelby is going to be.

This is being with a Shelby, Lizzie thinks, drawing Linda close to her by the hand in one of the many, many bedrooms in this house. The oxygen between them is shared, warm. She can see the guilt behind Linda’s eyes, the original sin, never washed off, the Quaker values, the, the, the. She’s learnt to recognize it from the first time this happened. Linda didn’t say ‘no’ then.

Linda doesn’t say ‘no’ now, either.

Lizzie kisses her. “You went to a solicitor.”

“I did,” comes the response, between presses of lips.

“Was it for that guy? The one you talk to. The one who understands you.”

There’re hands grasping the back of her dress, now. It’s going to be wrinkled. She’s going to have to change out of it. She tells Linda so.

The hands grasp tighter, press her closer, simultaneously as she’s being walked backwards towards the bed.

It’s only once they’re on it that Linda responds verbally. “You know that dress isn’t staying on. You know that man isn’t the reason. Why do you insist on asking?”

Lizzie can only laugh in response.

* * *

She makes the bed herself, after. Opens the windows. Doesn’t change the sheets, but by the time the maids come to do so anyway, it’ll be days past. As long as it looks presentable.

Her dress does end up wrinkled. Linda’s doesn’t.

“I’ll escort you to the door,” she says once they’re out of the room, in one of the halls, mostly for Frances’ – who’s barely pretending not to stare at them, for the umpteenth time – sake.

The door is opened and Linda is halfway through it before she looks at Lizzie again. “I went to a solicitor,” she reminds her, but this time it’s said openly, playfully. “Said he could represent me.”

Lizzie smirks at her. “Have a fine evening, Miss _Shelby_.”

It is a lost cause, but she chose this life. It’s grand, it’s a statement, and it’s grand because it’s a statement. Both of them are Shelbies too, now, no laws need apply.

**Author's Note:**

> my only take here is, 'the peaky blinders fandom doesn't have enough lesbians' and 'god i love lizzie stark'


End file.
